Council bosses are yet to establish if a leisure centre and college campus it bought for £1 for its regeneration would make profit, despite nailing approval for the feasibility study last October.

The Five Acres site is proposed to be demolished to make way for a new multi-million pound leisure centre, a hotel and a restaurant.

But councillors were frustrated last night that a study into how well transforming the site would do hasn't been started yet, despite the green-light for research being given at a full council meeting four months ago.

Conservative councillor Len Lawton (Newent Central) said in the Forest of Dean District Council meeting last night: "We've moved an inch but we could have moved a mile in the time that we've wasted."

"It's going to cost us accordingly"

Forest of Dean District Council is currently waiting for Homes England, which owns the site, to exchange title documents and draft contracts so the deal can progress.

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At the full council meeting in October, councillors unanimously agreed to buy the Five Acres site off Homes England for £1 and invest £150,000 into a feasibility study examining the future of the site.

Five Acres College Site (Image: COPYRIGHT SIMON PIZZEY)

Mr Lawton said: "Why did we not actually start this feasibility study while we had the time? This is something that should have been transferred according to Homes England by a particular date last year. We said that it was unlikely to place, we said then that we should use our time wisely.

"Here we are, two or three months down the road, we still haven't made a move, we're losing time all the time. It's going to cost us accordingly. We still haven't set this feasibility study in place. If we were in business we would want to know what we could do with this site, what the outturn of this site would be, before we sat down and talked about what it was going to cost us.

"So far all we have heard is what this site will cost us, and how long it's going to take before we start spending that money. No talk about what we can do with this site or what the outturn from this site will be. We've wasted more time. Yes we've moved an inch but we could have moved a mile in the time that we've wasted."

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"Unknown costs and implications"

Chair of the authority's overview and scrutiny committee and conservative councillor Patrick Molyneux (Hewelsfield & Woolaston) said: "When we first discussed the idea of pushing forward with the feasibility study, we were told because of the tight deadline of transfer that it might endanger that transfer.

"We are down the road, we could have done a feasibility study to make sure we know the unknown costs and implications. We would have a better idea about what to spend on it."

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UKIP councillor and the cabinet member responsible for the infrastructure, Richard Leppington (Bream) said: "Hindsight's a wonderful thing. We were led to believe by Homes England it would accelerate the process in a manner far quicker than they have actually done. In which case we would be a long way down the road. But Homes England move at Homes England's pace."

Last night councillors on the scrutiny committee unanimously agreed to start the feasibility study subject to seeing a confidential brief before the next scrutiny meeting, and to write a letter to Forest of Dean MP Mark Harper to urge relevant ministers to expedite the process.